This post is brought to you by Autodesk Reality Capture Unless you’re designing a new building that’s slated for construction in the middle of a flat and empty landscape, context matters. Whether it’s a renovation, an addition, or new construction, the as-is geometry of adjacent buildings... View full entry

Photovoltaic (PV) concrete cladding is set to outperform rooftop solar, according to LafargeHolcim, which has developed a façade system with partner Heliatek.

The team said that the photovoltaic energy-generating concrete facade has the capability to double the energy generation traditionally achieved by roof-based solar systems.
— The Construction Index

"A prototype of this new photovoltaic facade system will be presented at Batimat, the French construction fair in November, and a pilot project is planned in 2018," LafargeHolcim writes in a recent announcement. View full entry

This post is brought to you by Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc). Tom Wiscombe, Chair of the Undergraduate Program at SCI-Arc, hosts a series of B.Arch Salons—informal Friday gatherings held at Cafe Americano across the street from the school. A recent conversation was... View full entry

Two entrepreneurs have figured out how to heat their homes for free: bitcoin mining.Bitcoin transactions require a lot of processing power, which creates a lot of heat. So Ilya Frolov and Dmitry Tolmachyov built a wooden cottage in the Russian Siberian town of Irkutsk, and they’re heating it with two bitcoin mines. The men pocket about $430 a month from bitcoin transactions, while keeping the 20 square meter space warm.
— Quartz

It’s 2027 (or 2037) and the age of the self-driving car. City-dwellers have traded in their car keys for ride hails. Street parking has been replaced by wider sidewalks and bike lanes, while developers are busy converting garages into much-needed housing.

That’s one vision of how self-driving cars will affect U.S. real estate, laid out in a report by MIT’s Center for Real Estate. But it’s not the only one.
— bloomberg.com

"Even as reclaimed parking spaces fuel a downtown building boom," Bloomberg reports, "autonomous vehicles will encourage builders to push deeper into the exurban fringe, confident that homebuyers will tolerate longer commutes now that they don’t have to drive, according to the report [...]."... View full entry

Apple's latest mobile operating system, iOS 11, just released today. One of the biggest updates that should get the attention of architects is ARKit, Apple's new augmented reality framework. ARKit provides the opportunity to for Apple and 3rd party developers to create AR experiences anew, or to... View full entry

Hyperloop One just announced the winners of its global challenge, unveiling ten teams from five countries with their proposals of the strongest routes for future Hyperloop connections. As a next step, the company plans to work with the teams and expert business and engineering partners to... View full entry

But what if there were a way to see gentrification long before the coffee shops, condos and Whole Foods appear? What if city planners and neighborhoods had an early warning system that could sniff out the changes just as they begin?

[...] neighborhood advocates would have the opportunity to implement policies ranging from reserving affordable housing units to educating residents of their renting rights to helping small businesses negotiate long-term lease extensions.
— NPR

In his NPR piece, astrophysics professor Adam Frank explains how various big data sets, like housing prices, eviction records, census data, or social media usage, can be utilized for "predictive analytics" to detect early onsets of gentrification for specific neighborhoods at an increasingly high... View full entry

Essey is an engineer at Uber and an early adopter of the Internet of things. He can control his lights with his Amazon Echo or an array of touchpad sensors he has installed throughout the home. Sensors tell him when there's water in the basement or a leak under the sink.

While Essey's setup might sound a little like science fiction, it's a prototype of the future. Some critics are worried these devices won't be secure and that companies will use them to spy on us to make money.
— NPR

As the Internet of things becomes more ingrained in our daily lives, some people are turning ordinary homes into smart homes. One way of doing that is by integrating smart appliances (dishwasher, fridges, microwaves, toasters, etc). That strategy, however, can be expensive and not very... View full entry

After three years of planning and design, the College of Arts and Architecture has launched a public, searchable photo archive of images from within the college. The online photo archive, Arts and Architecture Resource Collaborative (AARC), is the product of a partnership among the College of Arts and Architecture Alumni and Communications Office, the Visual Resources Centre (VRC), and Arts and Architecture Information Technology (AAIT).
— Penn State News

"AARC features images provided by multiple photographers with search criteria customized for the college, including department names, keywords, proper names and dates. Through a series of focus groups with key users and uploaders, the AARC team built a robust metadata structure, providing easy... View full entry

When most Amish men were farmers, it was common for them to work seasonally with non-Amish in town, on more traditional things like cabinet making or carpentry, or even making cigar boxes, boats and band instruments. Nolt, who conducted interviews in the late ‘90s with Amish workers in the boat-making industry, said interviewees pointed to the fact that making the wooden boats was similar to wood working.
— Atlas Obscura

According to Steve Nolt, Senior Scholar at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College, most of the Amish men under 65 work in factories. The majority of these manufacturing plants either assemble RVS or supply parts such as cabinets or windows. Such increased... View full entry

American e-commerce giant Amazon has filed a patent with the US patents office for a system for storing and retrieving goods in an underwater facility.

When an item is ordered for delivery, a sonic signal is transmitted from a buoy to the warehouse, which activates an air canister that inflates a balloon, allowing the chosen product to float to the surface where it would be dispatched to the customer.
— globalconstructionreview.com

Just last month, Amazon made headlines when it filed a patent for a drone tower design, essentially a multi-level fulfillment center for unmanned aerial vehicles in densely populated areas. Now a recent Amazon patent for "Aquatic Storage Facilities" has surfaced, allowing us a glimpse into the... View full entry

Until now, architects have had to design around the elevator shafts, which can comprise 40 percent of a building's core. Multi could allow them to install elevators almost anywhere, including the perimeter.

Strong magnets on every Multi car work with a magnetized coil running along the elevator hoistway’s guide rails to make the cars float. Turning these coils on and off creates magnetic fields strong enough to pull the car in various directions.​​
— Wired

After three years of work, ThyssenKrupp, a company synonymous with elevators, is testing the Multi in a German tower and finalizing the safety certification. Zooming up, down, left, right, and diagonally the new elevator was just sold to a residential building under construction in Berlin, and is... View full entry

Google parent Alphabet is spinning off a little-known unit working on geothermal power called Dandelion, which will begin offering residential energy services. [...]

Dandelion chief executive Kathy Hannun said her team had been working for several years "to make it easier and more affordable to heat and cool homes with the clean, free, abundant, and renewable energy source right under our feet," and that the efforts culminated with the creation of an independent company outside of Alphabet.
— phys.org

"In the U.S., buildings account for 39% of all carbon emissions, mostly from the combustion of fossil fuels for heating and cooling," Dandelion CEO Kathy Hannun explains on the company's blog. "In the Northeast, heating and cooling is particularly carbon-intensive due to the relatively high use of... View full entry

The importance of urban design goes far beyond feel-good aesthetics. A number of studies have shown that growing up in a city doubles the chances of someone developing schizophrenia, and increases the risk for other mental disorders such as depression and chronic anxiety.
— BBC, Michael Bond

While it might appear as common intuitive knowledge, humans are strongly influenced by their context. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in studies on the connection between neuroscience and architecture. Last month, London's Conscious Cities Conference brought together... View full entry